


What comes After

by luna55, NivellesArt (Nivelle)



Series: Good Omens - Ficlets, Drabbles and Ineffable Fluff [3]
Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 6000 Years of Slow Burn (Good Omens), Angst, Coming Out, Dating, Fluff, Happy Ending, M/M, Picnics, Slow Burn, agony-aunt Anathema, ineffable husbands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:34:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22406518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luna55/pseuds/luna55, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nivelle/pseuds/NivellesArt
Summary: When the world spectacularly fails to end, everybody’s favourite Angel and Demon suddenly have to deal with what happens after. Aziraphale discovers that throwing away an eternity of Rules is not as easy as he would wish. But he knows what he wants, and has a Plan of how to get him. Of course, when these not-even-remotely competent two are involved, nothing is going to go according to Plan.   Because 6,000 years is not slow-burn enough, a slow burn fic in which Aziraphale attempts to woo an already won over and thus oblivious Crowley, while battling his own internal angels.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Good Omens - Ficlets, Drabbles and Ineffable Fluff [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1418362
Comments: 6
Kudos: 69
Collections: Good Omens Big Bang 2019





	1. All in a Look

**Author's Note:**

> This piece was written for the 2019 Good Omens Big Bang. The illustrations in this work are by the incomparable Nivelle,  
> Thanks for being so patient with me as I missed every deadline by which I promised to send you the story.
> 
> Thanks as always to my amazing beta infelixsoror, who can be found haunting tumblr.

We open, as we will end, with an After. The sort of After capital letters were invented for. The type of After all mornings-after-the-nights-before aspire to be when they grow up.

The world had spectacularly failed to end one slightly stormy Saturday in a not-quite-abandoned US airbase on the edge of a sleepy village in rural Oxfordshire. Heaven and Hell had failed to get their comeuppance, had made an attempt at taking their frustration out on their two wayward agents, had failed at that too. A nightingale had succeeded in singing in Berkley Square.

And now, there was an After.

And Aziraphale had to decide what to do about it.

He had, at this point, spent a not inconsiderable number of years dithering about it. There was a war going on inside The Angel of the Eastern Gate that had started millennia ago in a garden that no longer existed, when two, entirely defenceless humans were cast out for wanting to _know_. That moment had planted the tiniest sliver of doubt, a doubt fed and watered by a progression of seemingly arbitrary judgements, rules, slaughter of children, crucifixion, witch burnings, crusades and so, much more. The final onslaught however, had begun a little over 50 years before, in a church in the East End of London when a Demon had saved the corporeal life of an Angel, and more importantly, saved his books. 

The problem was that there had been these Rules. And Rules felt so clear and incontrovertible, even when a little ineffable. Rules meant there was Good and Bad, Right and Wrong, Angel and Demon. Rules meant there was his side and the Enemy, and he could sit comfortably, drinking tea in his unassailable fort atop the moral high ground. Granted, it turned out that giving a flaming sword to the humans _might_ have precipitated all of the wars in human history. But that was about choice, wasn’t it? What humans chose to do with his sword was, quite frankly, their own business. Crowley, and the Agreement, might have confused things occasionally, but that was a Demon’s job, temptation and so on. When it came right down to it there had always been a Right Way to Do Things.

Divine Truths had defined Aziraphale’s entire existence. There was, it transpired, just one, tiny problem. They were, not to put too fine a point on it, utter codswallop.

“You’re telling me that I didn’t even get a _trial_. Just quick involuntary pop upstairs, a column of infernal fire and kaput?”

“I’m sorry, Angel,” Crowley replied, watching him closely trying to gauge the appropriate reaction.

“Well then,” said Aziraphale with an air of finality. “How about that picnic?”

“uh-buh-what?” sputtered Crowley.

“You know, a picnic, we sit on a rug somewhere green, eat some food, drink some wine, try to keep the wasps out of the jam and comment on the quality of the strawberries this year,” Aziraphale continued with the air of someone explaining something very obvious to someone being deliberately obtuse.

“I know what a picnic is, angel,” Crowley responded, somewhat acerbically. “What I fail to understand is why we are talking about them right now.”

“You promised me a picnic,” said Aziraphale. This was a lie, he knew, but a small one and in the grand scheme of things it was hardly like such things mattered any more.

“Well, ok then.” Crowley was clearly still trying to catch up with the conversation.

“Capital. Hampstead Heath, 1 o’clock on Saturday, ta-ra!”

And Crowley found himself somewhat unceremoniously ushered out of the bookshop he had fully intended to spend the rest of the day in as Aziraphale politely, but firmly, shut the door in his face.

“ _Ta-ra?!”_ Crowley asked the empty air, before shaking his head and heading off down the street towards his car.

Aziraphale turned away from the door, eyes lit with a no-longer-heavenly glow. He had Planning to do.

*******

In the back of Mr. A Z Fell & Co, around a few corners that do not fell the need obey the laws of three-dimensional space, past the coat rack with the big black hat, and the cosy armchair with a cooling mug of cocoa balanced on the arm, there is a cupboard. A rather unassuming cupboard, one might expect it to hold odds and ends, brooms, or cleaning materials. Inside this cupboard lives an odd assortment of items: a coronet of laurel leaves in the Roman style, a medieval sword in a black sheath, a copy of the script of _Hamlet_ with a note from Shakespeare thanking one Master Faell most fervently for having taken so active a part in the first staging, a pair of manacles bearing the marks of the first Republic of France, a black top hat, and an inordinate number of pairs of tinted eyeglasses in a variety of styles.

In this cupboard there is also an unassuming black leather bag, of the sort last commonly in usage in the 1940s. It shows no signs of the wear and tear one might expect from a bag of this age, in fact, all the items in the cupboard look as good as new.

After a long week of hurrying around the various delicatessens, bakeries, cheesemongers and vintners of London it was to this cupboard that Aziraphale went to put the final touches to his preparations. He took the leather bag out carefully and placed it on the table where he proceeded to pack it with plates, knives, forks, wine glasses, wine, strawberries, clotted cream, scones, jam, cucumber sandwiches, cheeses, crackers, quince jam, grapes and a picnic blanket.

Aziraphale had seen ‘Mary Poppins’ when it first released in theatres and had taken it’s point about the expandable nature of carpet (or any other sort of) bags to heart.

As he packed, he glanced every now and then at a board propped on his desk, which had a rather large number of magazine articles pinned up around a list entitled, in neat copperplate handwriting, ‘The Plan’.

*******

At a little after one on Saturday, Crowley sauntered up to the spot at the top of Hampstead Heath to that one point where the view across London catches your breath, and almost makes you forget the noise and pollution and _people_. It was one of those early summer days, when the chill has left the air, and everyone in Britain was beginning to remember how beautiful life can be when you aren’t suffering from vitamin-D deficiency.

Somewhat miraculously, no one else appeared to have decided to picnic there that day, and apart from the occasional dog walker, they had the Heath to themselves. Aziraphale had spread a tartan picnic blanket on the grass and laid out a veritable feast.

“Hello, Angel.” Crowley sprawled on the side of the picnic blanket not currently occupied by either Aziraphale or food. “What a lovely picnic.”

Aziraphale smiled slightly anxiously in that way that made Crowley’s heart (deeply hidden in his chest) beat a little bit faster. “Oh, do you like it?” he asked.

“What could be better than a cream tea in the park after you’ve prevented the end of the world?” Crowley responded with a smile.

Aziraphale smiled softly and added that the company had to be right too, giving Crowley a sidelong glance. Crowley, at least from the direction of his glasses, appeared to be gazing out over London and not to have seen Aziraphale’s look.

“Quite, quite,” said Crowley, and reached for a scone.

Hours later, as the sun began to set, they polished off the last of the wine, scones and sandwiches, and the chill of the evening began to set in. The few stars that made it through the lights of the city began to put in an appearance. Aziraphale, beginning to feel the cold, without even thinking about it moved in to lean against Crowley. Crowley, the cold-blooded snake-demon, found this adorable, but nonetheless let Aziraphale snuggle into him to watch the sunset. As the chill of the night set in and the few brave stars that make it through what remains of the London smog began to shine, the Angel and the Demon gathered up their things and set off for home.

*****

Crowley leaned on the roof of the Bentley, watching as Aziraphale disappeared into his bookshop, still clutching that ridiculous leather bag in his hands. Crowley had recognised it instantly, had been briefly touched, and then quickly dismissed the feeling with the rationalisation that given Aziraphale had kept his coat for over 140 years, he was hardly likely to throw out a perfectly serviceable bag that was only around 70 years old.

The door to the bookshop swung shut, and the image of it in Crowley’s eyes was momentarily replaced with an afternoon in London not too long ago, when that same corner of Soho had been engulfed in flames. He shook his head to clear the image, patted the top of the car, got in and sped off, narrowly missing the bollards newly installed along the pavement.

It had been a nice afternoon. He wondered if Aziraphale would be up to more outings like it.

*****

Aziraphale was indeed up for more outings like it, and over the next few months proceeded to drag Crowley along on a whole host of outings, trips, perambles and other such diversions. They exhausted all the National Trust properties within a 4-hour drive of London (which included most of the UK with Crowley behind the wheel), spent several evenings at the Proms (standing, of course), and dropped in more than once for Tea at the Ritz. He even attempted a visit to Kew Gardens, but they had to leave in rather a hurry when all the plants in the Tropical greenhouse began to shake in terror as Crowley entered. After that they kept to open spaces, where the plants seemed to feel they had more of a chance of escaping should the need arise.

No longer subject to the whims of their Heavenly (or Hellish) taskmasters, these weekly outings began to give the form to their lives. Crowley began tentatively making suggestions for places to go. They spent a very enjoyable afternoon at the Tate Britain, commenting on the anachronisms of the pre-Raphaelites, and mourning the ills of the 14th Century, (really, if any of them had actually _met_ Arthur they would hardly have idolised him like that).

Towards the end of the summer, Crowley pulled a reluctant Aziraphale along to a classic car show. An activity Aziraphale quickly realised was, for Crowley, merely an exercise in self-congratulation as he prowled around, sneering at the condition of classic cars which had the misfortune to still require fuel and hadn’t been miraculously restored by the Antichrist.

On one memorable, slightly drunken, occasion they even tried clubbing but quickly decided they were a few thousand years too old for it and exited the club in favour of a quiet scotch back at Crowley’s apartment. An apartment, which at this point, had gained a pair of decidedly squishy armchairs, an angel wing mug that looked remarkably like the mug in Aziraphale’s bookshop, and something that might even be described as a bookshelf.

More often than not, they would end up back at the bookshop with a nice glass of whisky as Azirpahale attempted to build up the courage to do… something. He would sit, staring into his whisky, and feel the war waging on inside of him. He contemplated replacing their comfortable chairs with a comfortable couch, engineering a situation where they just sort of fell into one another. This scenario was quickly dismissed as far to fanciful, a scene lifted from those romance books he didn’t admit to enjoying.

He would linger at the door as he left Crowley’s flat, or as he saw Crowley off, drawing out the goodbyes, discussing plans for their next trip, darting glances up at Crowley’s face and then quickly looking away again. He became very well acquainted with the stretch between Crowley’s collar and his lips. He noted, that for all Crowley’s complaints, he still wore the jacket with the tartan collar he’d bought.

He would give himself a stern talking to, he was a soldier, he’d fought in a _war_ , he was supposed to be _courageous_ , and he couldn’t even bring himself to kiss the demon. Despite everything, something held him back, a lingering vestige of fear, the knowledge that this was the one incontrovertible line, that once crossed he had finally, and irrevocably made his choice. Despite all that Heaven had done, he couldn’t quite rid himself from that final claim on his heart.

He tried, failed, and ended each such evening forlornly looking at his plan and wondering what on Earth he was going to do. Plans, it transpired, were a lot easier to write than to effect. 

*****

Crowley was conflicted. On the one hand, they were free, Heaven and Hell seemed content to pretend that neither he nor Aziraphale existed, and Crowley could amuse himself by inventing minor inconveniences for these humans he’d become so fond of without having to hasten their eternal damnation. He and Aziraphale could do as they wished, without fear of reprisal, and were finally free to spend as much time together as they wanted. And Aziraphale did seem to want to spend time with him. Was organising trips, and outings, and picnics. Was spending long evenings drinking at his place, or inviting him to the bookshop. Had got that beautiful little glow inside the first time he had come over and found the armchairs, the mug, and the bookshelves.

Yet, on the other hand, Crowley wanted more. Until the Apocalypse-that-Wasn’t Crowley had managed to content himself wallowing in unrequited love, showing up to rescue Aziraphale from whatever trouble he had landed himself in, and then retreating to hibernate and nurse his bruised heart in peace. Of course they had had the Arrangement, which put them in some danger, but Crowley had not wanted to push the limits of Heaven’s patience any more than that, he knew how narrow that line was.

But then had come the apocalypse that wasn’t, and he had allowed himself the smallest hope that things might begin to change. He had laid himself bare not once, but twice. He had been utterly rejected not once, but twice. But _then_ Aziraphale had come home with him. Had sat on the bus with him, had held his hand so strongly Crowley had had to remind his bones they didn’t actually have to be corporeal if he imagined they weren’t. Had clung onto Crowley as if Crowley was the fixed point around which Aziraphale was reconstructing his universe.

Aziraphale had come home with him, had stayed the night, had cooked breakfast in the morning and Crowley had left in Aziraphale’s body. They had confounded Heaven and Hell, dined at the Ritz, and Aziraphale had come home with him. Had found reason after reason to delay his permanent return to the bookshop. And the little fern of hope at the centre of Crowley’s being had slowly started to unfurl. Maybe, this time, maybe?

And then some weeks or months later, Aziraphale had looked at his watch, said “Good Heavens, is that the time, I should be getting going” and had disappeared back to his bookshop, leaving Crowley staring after him and the tiny fern of hope curling back in on itself.

It had been a few days later that Crowley felt he had mastered himself sufficiently affect nonchalance as he called Aziraphale and “wondered if you might like to come over for a night cap”. The invitation accepted they had sat in Crowley’s flat, and Crowley had wondered if he was the only one feeling awkward, and out of place.

That had been the night Crowley had finally told Aziraphale what had really happened during his extraordinary rendition. And after that night this interminable series of ‘excursions’ had begun. A more hopeful being might have called them dates, but the little fern at the centre of Anthony J. Crowley was rather more dubious about the concept of hope than that. No, these excursions seemed to walk the tightrope between something more than friendship, and something lifetimes less than whatever it was Crowley really wanted.

Each one offered the promise of, something, and left him wanting, and his poor bruised heart beat ever more painfully in his chest.

*****

They were in a property somewhere in the North of England when it all came to a head, Cragside or Cravenshill or another of these places that had been landscaped by Capability Brown, an idol of Aziraphale’s ever since he’d bumped into him at a party in 1753. They had explored the formal gardens and were now wandering through the rhododendron maze, chatting about nothing, and Aziraphale was trying to get up the nerve to take Crowley’s hand.

A young couple ahead of them were indulging in the joyful spring of being 22 and just out of university and with the whole world ahead of them. Running around, chasing each other, hiding behind corners to surprise the other. Meeting and parting, meeting and parting, meeting.

Crowley was doing his best to ignore them. Though hope, as we have discussed, was not something he generally indulged in, the fleeting notion that these outings might turn into dates had fled as summer faded toward autumn. The pattern remained the same, they would meet, they would enjoy a lovely afternoon somewhere being terribly middle class, they would drink and talk and they would part. And every time they said goodbye Aziraphale would barely be able to look at him. They would stand, tantalising close at the door, and that devious sliver of hope would start to build again, but Aziraphale would fix his eyes on Crowley’s collar for an awkwardly long moment before bidding him a hurried goodbye.

The sight of the young couple, fresh in the spring of young love, had been too much for him. It wasn’t fair, and he was tired, and it had been 6,000 years, and really, enough was enough. Maybe he should go on a trip, he’d heard that Andalucía was nice this time of year, maybe he could write over the terrible memories of the Inquisition. He could go somewhere and, how did the gap year kids put it, ‘find himself’. God, he sounded like a divorcee.

Whatever it was he was going to do, he knew one thing, he couldn’t be _here_ , watching them have all the things he couldn’t have. He was going to say something, he had to say something.

He turned to see Aziraphale positively beaming at the young couple. The Angel turned to meet Crowley’s gaze, and his face fell slightly. Aziraphale might have only been able to sense love, but he could read Crowley, or at least, he thought he could.

Now what is about to pass between Aziraphale and Crowley doesn’t happen in words, it happens in minute gestures, expressions and impulse beyond the remit of human senses but well within Angelic (or indeed Demonic) ones. What happens here, is in fact, rather like the wink that saw the Antichrist packed off to be raised in a rural Oxfordshire, and not en route to the White House.

Because what Crowley says in this exchange is “Please, Angel, you are breaking my heart and have been for Millenia, I have done everything I can to give you exactly what you want, need and ask for. I have rescued you when you are clearly capable of rescuing yourself, I have danced around your need to follow the Rules, I have accepted every time you called me a Demon and meant it, every slight, every injury, every excruciating moment of our friendship to spend time with you, I have gone slow as you asked and born every rejection you have made. I have done this because I fell hopelessly head over heels in love with you on top of a wall at the beginning of the universe and have been falling ever since. But I cannot do this anymore, the way you are looking at that young couple in love makes me want to smite them down in jealousy that they can share their love and I can’t and my poor bruised heart cannot take the strain and I am on the brink of finding out if one really can die of a broken heart. So please, Angel, understand when I say I just need some time to find a way out of this.”

But what Aziraphale reads is “What a ridiculous Angel you are for thinking that we could share what that lovely young couple have, how could you possibly imagine that and Angel and a Demon could ever share something like that. I have put up with you for Millenia, but really, these pointless excursions are simply a way to pass the time, and I think I might just wander off for a while.”

*****

Aziraphale was never quite sure how he had got through the drive back down to London. He made small talk and watched almost disinterestedly as the cars jumped hurriedly out of the way of Crowley’s speeding Bentley. He held it together as Crowley dropped him off outside his shop, making an excuse about the long trip and being tired before Crowley could even suggest a night cap.

“Bye, Angel,” Crowley called as he sped off, never having intended to suggest a night cap at all.

He held it together as he opened the door of the shop and made it all the way to his little back room before he saw in stark letters in front of him ‘The Plan’.

Angels very rarely have reason to cry, save to shed a poetic tear over the fate of mankind in his wickedness, or a poor young girl treated ill by the world. But Aziraphale had not spent 6,000 years on Earth without learning a few things, and his tears were neither poetic nor few in number. He crumpled in an undignified heap in the middle of his bookshop and wept the great, gulping sobs of one whose world is crumbling around them.

Eventually, the tears dried to sniffles and hiccoughs, and Aziraphale found that the shop was a simply unbearable place to be. Every place reminded him of Crowley, of what they had and what he might have ruined. He couldn’t stay there a minute longer, he simply had to get out.

Aziraphale left his shop to wander disconsolately around London, had he wings they would have been dragging behind him. Unsure of where to go he soon found himself walking through the various meeting spaces they had frequented in their years together. The ducks in St James’ Park seemed unconcerned at his plight, the cake in the British Museum Café stuck in his mouth, wind and rain blew a flurry of autumn leaves through the old bandstand and eventually Aziraphale found himself sitting riding around on the upper deck of the number 19 bus, looking out of the window and resisting the urge to make it rain.

The night grew dark as Aziraphale watched London pass him by. This strange London seemed unusually full of couples, of youth and laughter, of fighting and kissing, parents pushing babies in pushchairs, older couples strolling hand in hand, arm in arm, in companionable silence, meetings and partings, surprises, the comfort of the everyday mundane. From the top deck of the No.19, Aziraphale saw a million lives and loves go past, felt each and every one, and felt how far they were from his own.

Eventually the bus came to a halt and through the bus reverberated the slightly muffled sound of the driver’s voice: “This bus is now out of service, all change please. This bus is now out of service, all change please.”

Aziraphale got to his feet and climbed slowly down the stairs. Disembarking, he looked around, not entirely sure which part of London he was in. Standing a little way back from the bus stop, in a long blue-black dress that would not have been out of place when Aziraphale’s coat was made, stood a young woman with no-nonsense eyes, long brown hair, and a very large black umbrella.

“Are you coming then?” said Anathema Device with a small smile, as she turned and walked briskly towards a slightly battered old Volkswagen beetle parked illegally on the corner.

Aziraphale took in a breath to respond, sighed, shut his mouth again and followed her.


	2. Learning to Let Go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As ever thanks to the incomparable Nivelle for the illustration and infelixsoror (over on tumblr) for being an excellent beta reader.

A very large mug of very hot tea was plonked rather unceremoniously down in front of Aziraphale as he sat morosely at Anathema’s kitchen table. Though raised on the other side of the pond, it seemed Anathema had acclimatised well and knew better than to offer the grieving Angel a hug. The mug, Aziraphale noted, instructed in large cheerful letters: ‘Don’t Panic’, which he felt was rather apt. He took a big gulp and immediately began to feel a little better.

After a few more sips he began to take in the kitchen around him. Sitting on the stove top, bubbling away with something that looked rather like hot chocolate was a small, one might say travel-sized, cauldron. Strewn across the various counters and surfaces were the paraphernalia of an ardent occultist, along with piles of the _New Aquarian_ and several other publications Aziraphale couldn’t place. The cottage looked decidedly Anathema-y. He looked up at Anathema, a question on the tip of his tongue.

She gave a small shrug. “After you’ve averted the apocalypse, a second date doesn’t quite measure up,” she responded to the unasked question matter-of-factly. Ah, that explained the lack of Newt then.

“Oh, I am sorry,” Aziraphale said looking up at her unconcerned face. He wasn’t sure he was all that sorry, they had seemed a rather oddly matched pair. Clearly a relationship that had run its course quite quickly then. But still, just in case, he continued. “Relationships do seem to be rather tricky things, don’t they? I mean, you think you’ve found the person you might want to spend the rest of your life with, and it turns out that after all they don’t think about you the same way, or I guess in your case, you don’t think of them the same way. And either way it all comes to nothing, and you have to wonder if you’ve been wasting your time, or you’d just got it all wrong in the first place. I mean, just because they offer to run off to Alpha Centuri with you doesn’t mean they want to buy a cottage with you and grow courgettes and live happily ever after, does it? Or maybe they did, but you just waited too long to realise you wanted that too and now they’ve given up and moved on and who can really blame them, I mean, there’s only so long one person can wait, isn’t there?”

Anathema took a seat at the kitchen table across from Aziraphale, drinking her own tea from a mug that said ‘Due to inclement weather the Witching Hour has been rescheduled to next Tuesday’. She said nothing, providing the best service a friend can in a crisis as Aziraphale gave vent to all the thoughts that had been running through his head during his long bus ride. Watching as he slowly came to terms with the idea that maybe his After wasn’t going to go quite according to the Plan. Every now and then Anathema would pat his hand and get up to put the kettle on to top up their mugs of tea. At one point, crumpets appeared on the table, laden with butter and honey, Aziraphale ate without really noticing what he was doing.

Finally, as the tea stocks of Oxfordshire started to run low, Aziraphale ran out of steam and gave a big yawn.

“Come on,” said Anathema, getting up and stretching. “I’ll show you where the spare room is. The bed is all made up for you, towels on the dresser, bathroom at the end of the hall, you have to hit the shower a bit to make it work but I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

She led the tired Angel up the narrow stairs of the cottage to a room under the eaves with a bed made up with a tartan throw. On the dresser, just as she had said Aziraphale found the towels, a pair of M&S pyjamas in his size and a toothbrush. Aziraphale gathered up the towel, toothbrush and pyjamas, gave Anathema a weak watery smile and padded down the hall to the bathroom.

*******

Crowley spent the rest of the week in his flat, staring blankly at the walls and trying to organise his thoughts. As Sunday rolled around and he had heard nothing from Aziraphale he breathed a sigh of relief, maybe the Angel would give him the time he’d asked for. Eurostar tickets to Southern France appeared in his pocket, Crowley drove down to Dover. He could have got the train from London of course, but he wanted to walk along the cliffs first.

As he stood, staring out across the waves he spotted a pod of dolphins cresting and leaping and playing. Instinctively he turned to point them out to Aziraphale, and in that moment knew that no distance or time in the universe would be enough for him to put the Angel out of his mind. No, that was not going to work.

Deep in thought he strolled back to the Bentley, maybe it was worth it, one last time to put himself out there. It would need some build-up, he thought, but not so much, they’d had millennia after all.

The Royal Academy of Ballet were once again performing Michael Borne's Sleeping Beauty, and while an evening at the ballet was hardly Crowley's usual cup of tea, the addition of vampires to this particular version had made it somewhat palatable. Decision made, Crowley bought tickets (first circle, front row, of course) and went over to the bookshop to tempt Aziraphale to dinner and a show.

The shop was closed when he arrived, but that was hardly unusual, and the doors opened for him anyway. There were no lights on in the back rooms and as Crowley called out and focused his sense on Aziraphale, he found, with some surprise that he wasn't there, indeed he wasn't even in London. Aziraphale, for some reason, was in Oxfordshire.

Crowley shrugged, trying not to feel a little pang of hurt, and two prime seats for Matthew Bornes' sleeping Beauty miraculously came free.

He was turning to go, when his eye caught on a cork board propped up on the desk next to the computer. There seemed to be a number of articles pinned up around a central sheet. '50 ways to get your man', '10 first dates that never fail', '21 signs he's into you'. The sort of magazine articles that had taken Crowley a decade or so of painstaking work to make truly successful sometime in the mid 80s. Crowley shook his head and stepped closer. The articles were annotated, items crossed out, others highlighted, and all pinned around the central sheet that read ‘the Plan’. Crowley sighed, he had had quite enough of Plans, effable or otherwise. But something caught his interest and he read it through in more detail, and as he did so the full meaning of what he was reading hit him and he sat down in Aziraphale’s desk chair with a thud. Aziraphale, it seemed, had been wooing him. Crowley bit back a chuckle that was really half a sob, ridiculous Angel, to somehow think, after all these years, that Crowley still needed wooing.

And Crowley had been so close to giving up.

His eye caught to one article at pinned near the bottom of the board, half obscured by the others. He pulled it free, this one was different from the other articles, it had far fewer annotations and bore the rough signs of much reading. This was not an advice article; it was an article about people who’d broken the religious or cultural expectations of their families or communities to find love. The only annotation on this article were a single question, ‘How?’.

In that moment Crowley remembered what it had been like to fall, he remembered the sudden alienation, the confusion, and the dawning realisation that all the rules he had been created to know and to follow bore little sense and even less compassion. He saw Aziraphale’s certainty, his callous conviction in the separation of _Angel_ and _Demon_ , his spouting of inane justifications (“‘Not consulted on policy decisions,’ my arse”), for what they were.

Before he had even fallen in love with an Angel Crowley had known what a load of claptrap the Rules were. Aziraphale was only just figuring that out. And in doing so doubting everything.

Crowley thought back to their last meeting, their unspoken conversation, and suddenly wondered if Aziraphale had really understood what he had meant him to understand. Had Aziraphale read pain and self-preservation there, or had he read rejection? The latter would explain his strange stiltedness in the car on the way home, his disappearance.

His poor, dear, wounded Angel, who despite rejecting Crowley twice (not one to bear grudges at all, was Crowley), did not really trust that Crowley had meant what he said. He had had a plan, and followed it meticulously, to make sure of it, and Crowley had come in and buggered it all up in a fit of impatience.

Well. Fuck.

*****

Shortly after his realisation, Crowley retreated to his flat to consider what to do now. A cute couple on the street he passed on the way home became the slightly bewildered recipients of the ballet tickets, along with a voucher for dinner at the Savoy.

Considering what to do now meant thinking about things that Crowley usually avoided thinking about, such as his supposed Fall and the immediate aftermath. Re-examining the memories that had surfaced in Aziraphale’s bookshop, Crowley thought through what he had been lacking in those first days when he had thought he was going to die from the pain of alienation from all that he had ever known. What had he needed, what could he give to help his Angel.

Shortly after the apoca-wasn’t, in the heady days of hope, when the little fern at the centre of his heart had begun to put out new leaves, Crowley had decided that if he and Aziraphale were going to be doing this together now, they would need a space that was theirs. Neither the bookshop nor his flat would really do. The bookshop was so thoroughly Aziraphale. The flat so thoroughly Crowley-as-he-thought-he-should-be. No, neither would do at all.

He began to look for houses and flats in London, never quite finding one that suited. He had got so frustrated in his search he had even begun to consider looking at things south of the river, but dismissed the idea of moving out of London. That is, until one weekend when they had taken a drive through the rolling hills of southern Britain and Aziraphale had suggested they stop for a slice of cake in a little village somewhere on the South Downs.

After tea they had gone for walk around the village and turned down a little lane lined with blackberry bushes. Crowley had pulled a few ripe berries of the bush, eating one and handing the rest of Aziraphale who had happily munched as they walked. At the end of the lane they had found a ramshackle cottage with a For Sale sign in the process of slowly falling over in the front garden. The cottage had seen better days, the roof was in need of replacing, some of the windows were cracked and the garden overgrown. But Aziraphale had clutched his arm to stop him and stared at the cottage transfixed. It stood right at the end of the village, backing onto the Downs. Through an iron gate they could see a large garden, running through to an orchard by a little stream. Crowley had idly considered that one could grow a nice range of vegetables in that garden. Peering through the windows he could see that for all its traditional look it was a rather large cottage, more of country house in the cottage style. Two stories and dormer windows cut into the thatch in the attic suggesting a third.

“Oh, isn’t it lovely, Crowley,” Aziraphale had breathed, with a longing that Crowley found impossible to ignore. They had driven back to London with Aziraphale occasionally sighing, a wistful look in his eye.

The next day Crowley had gone back and bought the cottage. As Aziraphale moved back to the Bookshop Crowley had begun to work on the cottage, figuring at least some good should come of his unexpected free time. The garden had been beaten into submission, or more accurately imagined into submission, and lay neat and orderly, ready for next year’s spring planting. Though the outside of the cottage had needed some work, the inside had been in good order, and Crowley had had to do very little. The floors had been re-varnished and finished, doors re-fitted the keep out drafts, and general touch-ups all by a local company.

As the heady optimism of the early summer began to fade, Crowley began to wonder if he hadn’t better sell the cottage on, no use keeping it sitting around empty.

Considering what to do now, Crowley’s thoughts drifted to the cottage and began to form a Plan of his own. A nice, quiet cottage in a peaceful village, yes, that could be quite a good place for an Angel to fight his own personal demons.

Five minutes later a 1933 Bentley sped out of London at an imaginatively impossible speed, heading towards the South Downs.

*******

Anathema walked through the hall to the kitchen passing a calendar on the wall. This month’s picture was of puffin standing on one leg next to a model puffin that only had one stick holding it up. The day’s date was circled in blue.

Aziraphale was in the kitchen, jacket draped neatly across the back of a chair, shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows, humming cheerily as he did the washing up. She sighed; there was a lot to be said for a literally Angelic houseguest, even one who forgot that he could miracle the plates clean, but she was really looking forward to having the cottage to herself again for a while. Adam had been learning about the Earth’s layers in Geography and was going to be turning up with Questions any day now. By her reckoning, she had about three days and four hours before he would arrive for tea.

She leant against the doorframe. Aziraphale turned around to look at her, smiling. “Ah, there you are, my dear girl. Kettle’s just boiled and I’m brewing some of that lovely chai and vervain tea you like so much,” he said cheerily.

“Thanks,” said Anathema, “But we don’t have time for tea today.”

Aziraphale’s cheerful face slipped ever so slightly. “Oh,” he said, reaching for a tea towel to dry off his hands, “I suppose, well, yes, I suppose I must have outstayed my welcome just a little bit. Time to go, eh?”

Anathema nodded firmly. “Come on, I’ll drop you off.”

Aziraphale, giving the impression of drooping wings despite having none visible, followed her out of the cottage to the car.

Immersed in his own thoughts he hardly paid attention to the countryside slipping by, and when the car slowed a few hours later, he had no idea where they were. They appeared to be driving through a small country village. The tea shop on the green seemed vaguely familiar. He wondered if maybe he and Crowley had stopped here for a slice of cake. They would have gone for a walk after, which ended in a little lane on the edge of the village. Crowley had fed him blackberries and they had walked along the lane to the end, where a ramshackle cottage sat in the middle of an overgrown garden. He had been overwhelmed, entranced. It had felt so strongly, not of love, but of possibility.

The car came to a stop by a lane lined with blackberry hedges, too narrow for a car. Aziraphale looked up at Anathema.

“Go on, it’ll be ok, you’ll see,” she encouraged gently.

Aziraphale looked down the lane, which seemed to stretch much longer than it had in his imagination. He took a breath, got out of the car, and began to walk hesitantly down the lane. After a few steps he gasped and remembered his manners, turning to thank Anathema for all her kind help, but she had already gone. He turned back and walked on, as the cottage came into view the image of what had been merged with what was. The roof had been rethatched and repaired; dormer windows held window boxes bursting with autumn flowers. A green wooden fence, with a gate framed with briars led to a path that wound through a wildflower garden, full of bees happily buzzing away. An iron gate to the side of the cottage held the promise of apple trees just visible in the distance, and the tinkling sound of the brook. The interior of the cottage was no longer dark, he could see lights and furniture inside.

He pushed the gate open slowly and was hit with a wave of emotion that took his breath away. A deep, yearning hope, holding all the anticipation of millennia, rolled over him. Running under this flood was an undercurrent of love, a love, he realised now, that was as familiar as the earth beneath his feet. It had been such a constant to his time here on Earth he had never noticed it before. Through this gate, down this path, inside this cottage, was a life he had barely allowed himself to imagine, if only he wanted it.

Driving out towards the motorway Anathema smiled. A little bit more of the world had fallen into place. Time to prepare to meet the questions of an inquisitive 11-year-old.

As Aziraphale approached the door he ran his hands through the flowers of the garden, late summer blooms filled with the deep scents of approaching autumn. As he reached the wooden front door it swung open to reveal a staircase, a hat stand with a familiar black hat, and a passageway with several doors. Along the wall running up the stairs were a series of pictures, an eatery in Rome, an empty hill just outside of Jerusalem in 1st century Palestine, an Arc in the middle of a great desert in Mesopotamia, a bombed out church in the London Blitz and a bag of books.

The first room was a large sitting room, a log fire burning in the fireplace, a cup of cocoa in a winged mug sitting steaming by his chair – yes, definitely his chair – in a corner surrounded by bookshelves.

He stepped forward into the middle of the room, a Persian carpet set in front of the log fire, with a large cosy sofa, just like the one he had once imagined for the two of them, the back cosy but low enough, that one might, if one wanted, sit on it with one’s wings out. He turned around slowly, taking in the whole room.

He finished his turn to find Crowley, leaning against a doorway into another part of the cottage, pulling off a pair of gardening gloves.

Crowley’s expression was a mixture of hope and guardedness. “Hello, Angel, missed you.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale began, “What is this?” trying to take it all in and failing.

“It’s a home, Angel, for as long as you want it.”

Aziraphale met Crowley’s gaze, and this time there was no miscommunication. Crowley laid himself open to the Angel and Aziraphale read in him there all the hope and longing and loving of a fallen Angel who’d given his heart away long ago on the wall of a garden that no longer existed.

“Home?” Aziraphale tried out the word. He’d never had a home, Heaven had been, well, an office. And on Earth too, he’d been working. He’d loved his shop, but home? Home was safety, security, permanence. Home meant being himself, whoever that was. Home, he realised as he looked around again at the room in the cottage built for him, for them, was something he had only felt once before, staying with Crowley after the world began again. Crowley, the one being who had never expected him to be anything other than who he was, and who had loved him so steadfastly, so unrelentingly, for 6,000 years that the experience of that love had been built into the very bedrock of Aziraphale’s understanding of the Earth.

For the second time in a century, Azirpahale started to cry. This was not the same sort of crying as the despair of a few weeks before. There were no gulping sobs or anguished wails. Aziraphale’s tears flew silently and steadily from his eyes. The tears of an Angel finally letting go of the last lock that held part of him at bay. Aziraphale cried the tears of one finally free from the fear of how to be, and who to be, of the release of being finally, beautifully, irrevocably free.

Aziraphale stood in the centre of the room Crowley built for him, crying tears of release as the last chains that Heaven had locked around his soul fell away. And then Crowley was there holding him in his arms, his wings manifest, encircling him. Crowley held Aziraphale as his tears seeped into his shirt with the patience of one who has lived an eternity, and has an eternity still to live.

Aziraphale wept. The world moved around them. Time passed. Bees collected pollen and turned it into honey. Apples ripened and dropped as the leaves turned red and gold and fell. People sang for the birth of a saviour they no longer believed in. Bluebells carpeted the woods of England. Grasses and wildflowers grew up tall and bright under the sun. Crops ripened and were harvested in the fields. And Aziraphale wept. In the corner of a cottage in the south of England a cup of cocoa sat and steamed as hot and fresh as when it was first poured. And Aziraphale wept. And Crowley held him as he wept and the small fern of hope at the centre of Crowley’s being unfurled, put our new leaves and grew green and strong.

Then one sunny summer day, a perfect day for a picnic, Aziraphale breathed out a long, cleansing breath, looked up at Crowley and smiled.

“And yet you waited all this time?” he marvelled.

“Yes, Angel, all this time.”

Aziraphale had a thousand questions but he looked up at Crowley, who was still holding him, and sighed. Questions could wait, he should probably go and check if his cocoa was still hot.

******

We could, loyal reader, leave it there, with an angel and a demon embracing in their home. We could pan the camera out through the window past the idyllic garden and not yet traumatised plants, zooming further out to take in a quaint little English village, the South Downs, England, the world enveloped in an aura of love. But there are just a few ends to tie off, a few stories to be told, and you are, I am sure, just as interested in what comes After.

To say that Crowley and Aziraphale plunged headlong into idyllic British life would be something of an overstatement, but efforts were made. They quickly became regulars at the local pub (Crowley) and tea shop (Aziraphale), Crowley would diligently enter something into the village fete each year, though his vegetables never did so very well (Aziraphale apparently held that demonic miracles in village competitions were _cheating_ ), and Aziraphale became good friends with the nice lady who ran the second hand bookshop – mostly because he would turn up occasionally with some first edition or other he ‘just happened to find while clearing out the attic’. Crowley’s flat in London was sold on, but Mr A Z Fell and Co’s bookshop continued on, it’s opening hours, if possible, even more erratic than before. The Village of G--- were most satisfied with their new members, who ‘kept their place nice and tidy’ and ‘were sure to help if one was having a spot of bother with something or other and they happened to be walking by’.

And so, Crowley and Aziraphale pottered along contentedly, enjoying good wine, good books, good food and good company. They occasionally had visitors, Adam would come stay, Anathema would drop by for tea, even Warlock once he had tracked them down and ascertained in no uncertain terms that they hadn’t left because of _him_. Theirs might not have been the ‘Happily Ever’ type of ending that exists only in fairy tales and the imaginations of young romantics, but, Aziraphale thought, looking out of the window at Crowley in the garden having a serious chat with the snails, it was a fairly good one, after all.


End file.
